Corporation for Public Broadcasting CPB

President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act on November 7, 1967, creating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a private nonprofit corporation to channel federal money to noncommercial radio and television. CPB helped launch the Public Broadcasting Service in 1969 and National Public Radio in 1970, but it did not produce programs or own stations itself. It was governed by a board appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and Congress funded it two years in advance to buffer it from political pressure.

For decades CPB distributed roughly half a billion dollars a year, most of it in grants to about 1,500 local public radio and television stations, which used the money to buy programming from NPR, PBS, and other producers and to run local news, emergency alerts, and educational services. Federal money made up a small share of budgets at large urban stations but a large share at many small and rural ones. CPB also funded children's programming, a national satellite interconnection system, and services for tribal stations.

On May 1, 2025, an executive order directed CPB to stop funding NPR and PBS, and on July 24, 2025, the President signed a rescissions law canceling about 1.1 billion dollars already appropriated to CPB for the following two years. CPB announced in August 2025 that it would wind down its operations, and stations began cutting staff or seeking new funding. On January 5, 2026, CPB announced that its board had voted to dissolve the corporation after distributing its remaining funds, ending 58 years of operation. Supporters of ending federal funding said public media had a liberal bias and could survive on private support, while station leaders and many lawmakers of both parties warned that rural communities would lose local news and emergency information.